


Flesh Wound

by TheSoupDragon



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: But not terribly graphic, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I think I said that twice., John doing what John does, John is a doctor and an ex-army surgeon after all, M/M, Minor Injuries, Sherlock gets into trouble, all alright in the end, and John is very good at doing these things, and definitely fluffy hotness to finish with…, descriptions of wounds/injuries and blood, fluffy hotness to finish with…, has to be - doesn’t it?!, ok - so - when doesn’t he?, vaguest mention of PTSD-like symptoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-06-22 06:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15575976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoupDragon/pseuds/TheSoupDragon
Summary: From chapter one:The blood was oozing slightly but not pouring, and it had already started to clot."What sort of knife?" John asked."Very small paring knife. He picked it up from the block when he sent me to get something from the freezer. The knife was clean - the whole kitchen looked pretty clean...it's what's going on in the office upstairs that's dirty."John smiled at that briefly despite the situation. He knew Sherlock had just gone to supposedly suss out a restaurant owner suspected of money laundering and other financial crime, but, hey ho, apparently he had managed to get embroiled in a kitchen scrap and had come home with a knife wound.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks are due again to [StarsAndStitches](http://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAndStitches/pseuds/StarsAndStitches), for her unending enthusiasm and thoughtful and considered beta-reading...Not to mention her support, appreciation and total understanding of my somewhat warped and subversive sense of humour.

Downstairs, the front door of the flat was opened rather forcefully and someone entered the hallway, then the front door was slammed violently closed again. So violently that John heard the knocker bang outside with the force of it.  
_”John?”_ Sherlock called loudly up the stairs.  
John was in the middle of drafting out a referral letter for a patient whom he needed to send to see a consultant. He sighed. _”I'm in,”_ he called back in resignation. From the sound of Sherlock's voice, the letter would just have to wait. Sherlock sounded both pissed off and particularly demanding. John heard him coming up the stairs at a fairly urgent pace. As Sherlock opened the front door of the flat, John asked, "What's up?" without looking around.  
"I got caught," Sherlock said grimly.  
"Caught?...What? What do you mean, 'caught'?" asked John, now turning around in his chair, just as Sherlock began to shrug off his coat. John noticed immediately how awkwardly Sherlock was moving. "What's happened?" he asked, getting up from the desk, all his irritation at Sherlock's disturbance vanished.  
Sherlock hissed a breath in through his teeth with pain, bending his body down and to the left carefully in order to use gravity to help drop the coat from his shoulder. "Caught by a maniac wielding a knife," he replied, more calmly than a sentence containing a combination of words like that demanded to be said.  
"How badly? Where?" asked John sharply, seeing no visible wound on Sherlock's front, and in answer to John's question, Sherlock turned around to show John his back, whilst still in the act of shedding the coat.  
His once pristine white shirt now looked like a clumsy graffiti artist had been at work - but with a small cup of blood instead of spray paint. Blood stained the shirt fabric in a long, shallow, curving line that started high over Sherlock's left shoulder blade, moved outwards from his spine, and then curved down his back round towards the midline again to end abruptly on his left lower rib cage. The blood wasn't too excessive though, except for one area at the point of first contact where the wound was obviously deeper, but the rest of it clearly wasn't quite so deep - there was much less blood lower down. The shirt fabric was mostly cut through but it was otherwise clean - no obvious sign of any contaminants anyway - and the blood was all very fresh. "Bloody hell," remarked John, appropriately, moving closer. "Shirt off and come into the light," he instructed, going into professional mode at the sight of blood and moving the desk over a bit, so Sherlock could stand full in what dreary light there was coming through the windows.  
Sherlock obliged on both counts, undoing his buttons mainly with one hand and then dropping his ruined shirt carelessly to the floor, before turning to stand with his back to the window so John could see. 

 

John went and stood behind him and he could see immediately that it was not as bad as it had first seemed. Just a very minor laceration, then, deep at the start but then less so as it went on, becoming more just a deep scratch which petered out to nothing, but it was clean, and should heal well. It did need to be cleaned up and covered properly, but was nothing to be overly concerned about. Hopefully. He put his hand on Sherlock's uninjured right shoulder to steady him before he pressed carefully just above and then just below the wound at the top. The blood was oozing slightly but not pouring, and it had already started to clot.  
"What sort of knife?" John asked, frowning.  
"Very small paring knife. He picked it up from the block when he sent me to get something from the freezer. The knife was clean - the whole kitchen looked pretty clean...it's what's going on in the office upstairs that's dirty."  
John smiled at that briefly despite the situation. He knew Sherlock had just gone to supposedly suss out a restaurant owner suspected of money laundering and other financial crime, but, hey ho, apparently he had managed to get embroiled in a kitchen scrap and had come home with a knife wound.  
"What were you doing? I thought you were just going to talk to the restaurant manager," John asked, carefully checking the depth of the cut and Sherlock's ribs on either side of the wound.  
"I was," Sherlock replied, with a sharp intake of breath over one of his lower ribs, "but then I decided I needed to get closer to the inside, so after I left the manager's office, I went out of the restaurant and found a place out of sight to leave my coat, then I went back in through in the kitchen entrance and I was someone called Jamie Hinderson."  
"Who is Jamie Hinderson?" asked John, absently, deciding that Sherlock didn't need any stitches as it wasn't that serious. He thought that a few steri-strips would do the trick for the deepest part of the wound.  
"He's a new waiter," continued Sherlock. "Saw it on the staff rota. He was supposed to start work today at 11.30, but as it was only just after 10.30 I said I'd got a lift and had to come in early."  
"So who was it who got you?"  
"The head chef. He's in on it. I already knew that but I needed proof. Unfortunately though, he was onto me. He’d heard my voice and seen me speaking with the manager earlier but he was out of sight and I didn’t know he was there."  
John was annoyed that Sherlock had been so insistent that he didn't need John for this one, as he had said he was only going to scout the place out and not put himself at risk, but then he had come back looking like a Christmas turkey. "That's why you need back-up if you're going to risk being carved up like a—” he started, but he stopped himself. John was angry, but he also realised that talk wasn't getting this wound sorted out, and anyway, anger wasn't conducive to good health care. Or a good repair, in this case. He took a deep breath and expelled some air out forcefully through his nose. "Oh, let me get my kit," he said. He went and got his kit and some gloves. 

He cleaned the wound carefully and applied two steri-strips over the first part of the wound near the shoulder blade, where it was deepest. The rest of it only needed several large dressings.  
"How did he get you like this?" John asked while he was placing the steri-strips. He meant with the knife.  
"He played along at first. I went into the walk-in freezer to get something that he asked me to get and he came after me, I only heard him behind me at the last second because of the noise of the freezer engines but I wasn't quick enough to avoid him completely. That's why it goes off sideways, I bent and twisted away from the blade."  
John had worked that bit out.  
"From his point of view, a paring knife was maybe not the best choice of murder weapon," commented John, wryly.  
"He didn't want to murder me, John, just rough me up a bit and threaten me. He knew straight away I wasn't who I'd said I was, but of course he didn't let on. He thought I was a private investigator. He said he was going to 'throw me in the freezer to teach me a lesson'...The _moron.”_  
John smiled. "So what happened to head-chef knife-man?"  
"Oh, probably dislocated shoulder, bloodied nose - most likely broken - and very angry, but he’ll have cooled down a few fair degrees by now."  
John didn't need to be a genius to work out where he had ended up.  
"Actually," said Sherlock, and he glanced at his watch, "I suppose I'd better let Lestrade know he needs to get something out of the freezer."  
"Not dead?" asked John, thinking about the time scale of hypothermia.  
"No, not dead. Just chilled."  
It wasn't funny but John laughed. 

~~~

Only a month later, it happened again. This time John had been at work, covering a surgery for another doctor who was on holiday, and as he walked through the street front door and closed it behind him, Sherlock immediately called down from inside the flat, "John? Is that you?" He had left the front door of the flat open.  
"Yeah, why?" John called back up, wiping his feet. "Expecting someone else who has a key?" He trudged up the stairs. He was tired and had had a long day. As soon as he reached the flat doorway though and looked through it, to see Sherlock slumped in his armchair looking a little pitiful with several drying blood stains on his shirt and a darkening bruise on his left cheekbone, all his fatigue vanished.  
"Christ! What's happened?" he asked, dropping his work bag in the doorway and going over to look.  
"An oaf with a big fist didn't like the very accurate observation I made about his upbringing." Sherlock said.  
"Who? When?" asked John, turning Sherlock's head to assess the bruise and looking for the source of the blood on his shirt. Sherlock let John turn his head with one hand and gently palpate his cheekbone, temple and around his eye socket with his other hand.  "It's just bruised," said Sherlock, "but my neck hurts. And the blood's not actually mine, it's his. My forehead met his nose with some force. That's why my neck hurts - and why I’ve got a headache - he was quite solid."  
"What was it this time? I thought you were just doing research today."  
"I was. Just happened to get into a minor altercation while I was doing it."  
John still had his fingers on Sherlock's chin and jaw where he had turned his face away to look at the bruise. He turned Sherlock back to face him again, noting the second much paler, mauve bruise in the centre of his forehead, and he began thinking about concussion or brain trauma. He looked at Sherlock's pupils very carefully. And they were quite even and looked normal. Sherlock knew John was assessing his pupils for signs of concussion or brain trauma and he let John look. And then he very deliberately thought the secret thought that he had been holding in his head for so long, and he let the essence of that thought come through in his gaze. He didn't know if John would see it or not. And, as John was examining Sherlock's pupils...did he imagine it, or...did the air change somehow? Something in the atmosphere was subtly altered. And then John _really_ looked. They were so close physically - staring into each other's eyes, Sherlock seated, John leaning over him holding his face, and John could feel his heart begin to beat quite hard and this was suddenly no longer a professional medical inspection of an injured patient, it had become something different. An awkward moment where they were on the very edge of...something else. But John was a professional and not knowing quite how to handle what was happening, he turned to what he knew best. Safest. Not handling it at all. "Your eyes are fine, the pupils are normal," said John, letting go of Sherlock's chin and standing up straight again. His fingers tingled where they had touched Sherlock's face and he rubbed them lightly together out of Sherlock's sight.  
Sherlock didn't answer.  
"Can you move your neck normally? You need to stand up to show me," John said.   
Sherlock stood, a little gingerly, but was able to demonstrate an almost full normal range of neck movement - wincing a bit on rotating his head fully to the right; which made sense with the bruised left cheekbone. John had worked it out; he'd taken a blow to the left, thus forcing his head to rotate sharply to the right and then had immediately sustained a minor whiplash injury from the headbutt to the oaf. "Christ. When you do it, you do it really well, don't you?" asked John, meaning _'injure yourself'._  
"Oh, I do everything really well, John," replied Sherlock, in a harsh withering tone, and John wasn't quite sure what he meant, but he didn't feel he wanted to ask. "Let me get something for your cheek," he said instead, going for ice and a clean tea towel.  
Sherlock sat back down again, hard, in an almost visible puff of petulance and hugged his knees in that sulky way he sometimes did. 

John saw that Sherlock was annoyed now, so he attempted to make a joke to smooth the sudden atmosphere. “So are you getting these injuries on purpose for a bit of special attention?” asked John from the kitchen, rummaging in the freezer and half-smiling as he spoke.  
"Oh, well, I like the attention, John," Sherlock replied, deadpan, from the sitting room.  
"You do," John agreed, smiling more broadly, and then he came out of the kitchen to look at Sherlock. Holding the ice pack in one hand and a tea towel in the other, his smile faltered and he said, in a completely different tone, "You _are?”_ \- meaning, getting them on purpose.  
Sherlock eyed him seriously. "I do like the attention but no, I'm not getting them on purpose to get your attention, no."

 

It was a full six weeks before the next one. 

 

"Did you get any blood on your Belstaff?" John asked, looking over at the coat draped across the armchair.  
_"Did I get any blood on my Belstaff!?”_ Sherlock echoed angrily, yanking the ice pack violently away from his head so he could glare at John. "Not after the last time, if I can help it. It was very awkward to have to explain it _then_ to the dry cleaners. They wanted to check with the police to see if it was stolen and I had mugged someone for it." He had held the ice pack away from the side of his head briefly to speak, because holding it in place over the bruise and cut that was there was impairing his ability to submit John to the full blast of his icy stare. Then he realised that having to admit now how he had avoided bleeding on his coat - that he had actually carried his coat home to avoid this from happening - didn't go quite so well with the icy stare, so looking rather more demure, he re-applied the ice pack, and said defensively, "No, I...I carried it."  
But John was unimpressed. "You were attacked and bleeding from a head wound but you were worried about getting blood on your coat."  
"What's wrong with that? I'm very attached to this coat."  
"I know," said John, immediately thinking, 'I'm very attached to _you_ in that coat, you great idiot,' and then he baulked at the errant thought that had come into his head. He froze, eyes a bit wide. _'What the f—?_ Where had _that_ come from?' He was suddenly aware that he was pulling a shocked face at his own thought and he shook his head to clear it. Something was up with him at the moment and he didn't know what it was. "Keep that ice pack on the cut," he said instead, rather brusquely, and went off to get his scissors and surgical thread. He needed to tie some strands of Sherlock's hair together on either side of the scalp wound to hold it closed.  
Neither of them said much while John did it. He cleaned the wound and gave instructions to Sherlock while positioning his head and Sherlock obeyed them silently. It seemed they were both caught up in their own thoughts. 

__

_~~~~~_

A month later, they were actually out on a case together but had been separated when their two suspects had split up halfway through a chase. John had yelled an instruction to Sherlock as he shot off after one of the suspects and so Sherlock went after the other one. It was like living in a 'Carry-On' film sometimes, thought John, panting with exertion and really pushing to keep up as he tailed his suspect closely through the lower floor of an underground car park, while Sherlock chased his suspect on the floor above.  
The man ahead of John zipped through a narrow gap between two pillars and disappeared from view. When John reached the pillars, he passed through the gap and stopped and swore. This section of the car park was full of cars, unlike the last, and there were numerous vehicles to hide behind or under. But John couldn't hear his the suspect's footsteps so he clearly wasn't running, he must have—but just as John started to turn, something clobbered him on the back of the head behind his left ear, and he saw stars, the world vaguely beginning to swim out of view. He retained enough sense to dive rather then crumple and rolled sideways onto his back, as he did so aiming a solid roundhouse kick at the lower leg of the person behind him, aiming for immediately below his knee. The other man screamed and then swore heartily in a foreign language and dropped the weapon he had used to whack John with, clutching at his knee and dropping to the floor in a similar dramatic fashion, shouting in heavily accented English that John had "broken his fucking leg." John's head was swimming a bit but he was very much still with it, and while he lay on the floor, he checked the back of his head carefully with his fingers, feeling for blood. There was none. His assailant's weapon rolled towards him, and John saw now that it was a strangely rounded and smooth piece of wood, shaped like a club. He suddenly realised what it was. The business end of sawn-in-half baseball bat. Lovely. Luckily for John, the bloke had only just caught him a glancing blow, as he had just begun to turn round to look behind him when his attacker had struck. John’s unhappy assailant was now sitting down on the concrete floor, writhing, wincing and swearing in pain, still mostly in his native tongue. "You've dislocated my fuckin’ knee," he wailed, the words thick with his accent and the pain.  
"Good," said John with disgust, rubbing his head. There was a lump the size of an egg rising behind his ear. He resisted the urge to kick the bloke in the other knee for balance and/or good measure. The man's injured knee was swelling already, John could see it through the material of his jeans. Incapacitated, then, that was enough. "It's just your kneecap that's dislocated, stop making such a fuss," said John. He stood up, carefully, and got out his mobile, scrolling through his contacts till he reached Greg Lestrade. He clicked on 'call' and then he heard Sherlock call out his name from across the car-park. He had appeared at the opposite wall and John could see he was holding someone by one shoulder, frog-marching them ahead of him. Sherlock's captive had a very bloody nose and was staggering a bit. "John! Are you alright?" Sherlock called.  
"Yeah," called back John, wincing as the force of shouting made his head hurt.  
He realised his phone was squawking distantly at him and he brought it up to his ear.  
"John? Hello? Hello?" Lestrade was barking on the other end of the line.  
"I'm here," said John.  
"Any joy?" Lestrade asked abruptly.  
"We've got them. Queen Street multi-story carpark, floor level 2a...We're at the Carpenter's Arms end of the High Street," John replied.  
"Be with you in two," replied Lestrade efficiently and hung up.  
Sherlock brought the other man towards John, weaving between cars and then walking on the roadway, and flashing his stolen police ID badge very quickly at a woman who was looking interested. Sherlock even said to her, "Nothing to see here, move along please," in true police fashion. John soon realised why the man was coming so easily. "Handcuffs?" asked John, amazed, "Where did you get those?"   
"Cable ties," replied Sherlock, tightly. "Needs must when the devil drives."  
Whatever that meant. John shook his head, amused. Then he wished he hadn't. Jesus, that hurt.  
As Sherlock got close enough, John saw that he also had the encouragement of a small handgun pressed to the small of the man's back. John already happened to know that it was a very realistically cold and solid, but also very fake gun that Sherlock had picked up from somewhere. John shook his head, once, carefully, thinking that rather ironically, even though Sherlock was not only impersonating a police officer (illegal), and detective inspector, no less, with stolen police ID (very illegal), he was also brandishing a very realistic firearm in public (also pretty flipping illegal). Rather than being a law breaker, though - despite breaking three of them at once - he was, in fact, on the side of the good guys. John almost began to break into a rueful grin at the thought but then he caught a fleeting expression cross Sherlock's face and realised that Sherlock was hurt and that he was hiding it. The suspect he had gone after was older and looked far tougher and streetwise than the one who John had gone after.  
Not wishing to display any signs of weakness to their two captives, John looked at him very carefully. He caught Sherlock's eye and raised his eyebrows, inclining his head slightly at Sherlock to ask, 'You ok?'  
Sherlock shook his head once in an infinitesimally tiny movement so that the man he was holding in front of him would not notice it - so; _no,_ then, _not ok._ Sherlock let go of the man's shoulder and from his own coat pocket, he drew out a closed Stanley knife to show John. He dropped the knife back into his pocket again, and discretely pulled the lapel edge of his coat open to show John his chest. There was a small dark bloodstain spreading there on the pale blue shirt fabric, just below the middle of Sherlock's left clavicle. John gritted his teeth and folded his mouth. The pain in his head receded with a new rush of adrenaline.  
Sherlock's assailant looked at John, then, possibly picking up on something that John was thinking. There was still blood seeping from the man's nose and one of his eyes was darkening and swelling closed. It looked like Sherlock's elbow had caught him full in the face. He stared back at John with his one good eye. ”What're you lookin' at, short arse?” he said and then he called John a name that would have had John's mother rushing for the soap.  
John stared at him icily. "Get down on your knees… _Now_ …" said John to him, very slowly, the threat quite clear in his voice and his stance. He also said very clearly, _Do not mess with me,_ but without saying a single actual word out loud. He picked up the sawn-off baseball bat and held it meaningfully to underline his point, tapping the end of it in his open palm. He did not take his eyes off the other man while he did it.  
Sherlock put his hand back on the man's shoulder and exerted some firm pressure, and the man grudgingly went down on his knees, closing his good eye, and he hung his head, for all his bravado quite possibly feeling a little worse for wear. Very possibly a little concussed. But John really couldn't care less about his health.  
'Bad?' John mouthed at Sherlock, over his captive's bowed head.  
In response, Sherlock made another minimal shake of the head. John saw that Sherlock was using his arm on that side almost normally. Which was good. And he was breathing normally, which was even more important. Sherlock discretely dropped his pretend gun in his other pocket before the police arrived. "Pressure," said John, discretely, with a tip of his head indicate that he meant Sherlock needed to put pressure on his wound. And then the car park was filled with the beautiful music of a police siren and the very welcome bathing of blue lights, and John and Sherlock were able to deliver the two injured thugs, along with their charming array of weapons, to Lestrade and Donovan, and get on with the really important stuff. Away from the police, out of sight of the two criminals, John grabbed Sherlock's good arm and turned him around carefully. "A stab wound, Sherlock? How bad is it really?" he asked, pushing the lapel of Sherlock's coat to the side to see.  
There was more blood now but not a terrifying amount.  
"Managed to block the blade. Mostly. Didn't realise he was armed," said Sherlock.  
John looked at his face. "Show me," he said, with cold control. They were hidden from view by a high sided transit van.  
Sherlock unbuttoned the top of his shirt. As he did so, he said, "Don't fuss, John, it's only a flesh wound, it's nothing." He pulled the shirt open to expose the wound. His shirt was stuck to his skin with the blood. Below the pale ridge of Sherlock's left clavicle was a short, deep, diagonal cut, gently oozing dark blood. It was almost half the width of a Stanley blade. It wasn't massive, but it wasn't nothing. John didn't know how deep it was and he didn't like it. "Stab or cut?" John asked fiercely.  
“Stab," replied Sherlock. “Mmm, maybe more of a cut. Can’t be sure.”  
"Right. We're going to A &E," said John firmly.  
"I'm not going to A&E," Sherlock said, just as firmly. "That's what you're for."  
"Not for this one, we're going, come on," replied John, starting to move.  
Sherlock stood still. "I'm not sitting in A&E for six hours to be seen by a teenager fresh out of medical school. I'm not going."  
John turned back to face him. "You _are_ going. If I'm destined to die by your side, I'll do it, gladly, but not because some idiot has smacked me over the back of the head and and caused a bleed on my brain so I die suddenly of a brain haemorrhage whilst you slowly suffocate next to me from a spontaneous pneumothorax."  
"What's a spontaneous pneumothorax?" asked Sherlock vaguely, he knew, but he was thinking about the other thing that John had said.  
"A punctured lung which suddenly collapses," John continued. "It can happen from a needle injury that pierces the lung tissue, much less from a bloody Stanley knife. We're going. Come on." Sherlock was obviously convinced enough by that as he stopped arguing. As they left the carpark via the dank stairwell and re-entered the bright and normal world of the shopping centre, John said, "We'll get a cab. Put some pressure on it."  
"I must say, John, you seem very worried. It's only a flesh wound - its not like it's anything vital. It's not like its my heart."  
There was something odd about this statement.  
John's phone started ringing then and he glanced at the screen. It was Lestrade. John tapped 'answer' with his thumb and pressed the phone to his ear automatically, but he was looking at Sherlock, who continued to look back at him with an unreadable expression.  
"Great job," said Lestrade, enthusiastically, "Donovan knows the older guy, his name's Terry Winston. He's also wanted for aggravated burglary and A.B.H as well as handling stolen goods...P.C. Patel has the other one and Dimmock just phoned - he's just picked up the last member of the gang getting off a plane at Stanstead. Where are you, anyway? What d'you run off for?"  
John hesitated. "Errr, need a quick trip to A &E, I had a slight blow to the back of the head and Sherlock has a minor knife wound - courtesy of that guy, Winston."  
"Oh, well, won't hold you up then. You ok, though?" From anyone else in their situation having just made a remark like John's, the question, _"You ok, though?"_ asked then would be utterly ridiculous, but this was them, and that was Lestrade, so it was a fairly  normal conversation.  
"Yeah, we're ok," replied John. "Speak to you later," and he hung up.  
Sherlock was still looking at him. "Put pressure on it," John said again. This time Sherlock did. 

__

They emerged on one of the busy side streets outside the shopping centre, but every cab that passed was taken.  
"Why didn't you realise he was armed?" blurted John, suddenly, realising that Sherlock would have known in a moment whether someone was armed or not.  
Sherlock didn't answer but he looked away. Then he said, "Distracted for a second."  
“ ‘Distracted?’ By what?! You were grappling with a known drug dealer and violent gang member. Distracted by what? A score for a midnight sonata?" John was irrationally angry that Sherlock had been injured because he hadn't been paying attention. John had been standing on the kerb with his hand out automatically anyway, just in case a cab went past when he wasn't looking. At that moment, a black cab pulled up alongside them, much to the annoyance of the other drivers behind it who immediately began an enthusiastic chorus of impatient bibbing. "Get in," ordered John.  
Sherlock obediently got in and John got in after him. John did not know why he was so angry. He sat opposite Sherlock on the fold-back seat so he could watch Sherlock's face for any sign of shortness of breath or sweating or a sudden increase in Sherlock's usual paleness, and he glared at him.  
"Where to, Guv?" asked the cabbie innocently.  
“Where's the nearest hospital with an A&E?" snapped John.  
"Ah, that'd be Guy's and St. Thomas' then, mate," replied the cabbie, oblivious, full of the joys of Spring.  
"There, then!" John snarled.  
As the cabbie pulled away from the kerb, John addressed Sherlock fiercely. "What was it, hmmm? That never happens to you. Why didn't you realise he was armed?"  
Sherlock looked out of the window for a moment and then up at the interior of the cab roof. Then he said quietly, “I thought the screaming was you.”  
That took the wind out of John's sails. "Me?" he asked.  
Now Sherlock looked straight at him. "I thought it was you screaming at first and I...I paused for a second. He...did _not_ pause. He tried to stab me in the throat, but I was lucky and I managed to half block the blow so he only got me in the chest."  
John answered automatically, mind whirling. "Er, yeah, well, a Stanley knife in the chest is possibly preferable to one in the neck, that’s…that’s true.” He sounded a bit sarcastic, but internally he was all emotions at once. He looked at his friend and thought, ‘I'm angry with you because you let yourself get hurt because you were distracted.  But now I find out that the reason you were distracted is because you thought _I_ was injured and it was me screaming. So it was my fault you got stabbed.’ He wasn't sure how comfortable he felt about that.  
Sherlock looked back out of the window. John watched him and now it wasn't just to check his face for sweating, or increased pallor or shortness of breath. 'The reason I'm so very angry about it is because I really care about you,' John thought suddenly. And then he thought, 'But isn't that just being a good doctor or a good soldier though - obviously - to care about people, your patients, your comrades?'  
And then his ever-chirpy internal voice piped up. _Well, yeah - yeah, it is,_ it said, _it is...But you really,_ really _care about Sherlock though, don't you? So what do you make of that?_  
John could not deal with that question right now. 

He watched Sherlock and said nothing, and thought about all the possibilities in which Sherlock could be hurt or even die, until he had to stop torturing himself, and then he made himself think methodically and clearly about how the hospital would examine and treat Sherlock's injury until he was in control of his emotions again. By then they had pulled up in the drop-off bay at St. Thomas' hospital and he felt better. 

They were not seen by a teenager fresh out of medical school. They got through triage quickly (mid morning Wednesdays were never that popular, after all) and they were seen fairly fast by an experienced surgeon covering an A &E shift. John was gratified to see that she was very, very competent and very, very efficient. The Stanley knife had not pierced Sherlock's lung tissue, all major arteries and veins were intact and there was no nerve damage, so thankfully it was all ok. The contusion to John's head was examined and he was carefully checked and pronounced ok too, but that wasn't really what he had been worried about anyway. 

They barely spoke in the cab on the way home but John’s head was pounding and the air was fill of unsaid words. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N.B.: A&E stands for the "Accident and Emergency" department at a hospital. It's the equivalent of the American ER ("Emergency Room").


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, the sun was streaming in through a gap in John's curtains and the light woke him up. He lay still and looked at the dust motes swirling in the sunbeam as he breathed into it. He felt weird. Paused. Like you do when something massive has happened the day before and you’ve forgotten it overnight, he thought, and he waited - thinking that any moment now he was going to remember it in a sudden shock of revelation. But nothing came. Not with a sudden shock anyway, it was more like a whisper. _Oh yeah,_ said his internal voice quietly, _yesterday, you realised something, didn't you?_  
'I realised I care about Sherlock, so what?' he answered.  
_Mmmm,_ replied his internal voice sarcastically. _So it's just that then, is it?_  
The bloody internal voice was a smug and irritating wanker. ‘Yep. Just that,’ he thought firmly. And he whisked off the duvet and got up quickly to put an end to this stupid internal conversation. His head swam with a fiery burst of pain and he had to sit down again on his bed for a second. He felt a bit nauseous and he raised his fingers gingerly to the sore spot on the back of his head. Bloody hell, it was so, _so_ tender. The lump that was there felt _huge_ …although not as huge as it had been yesterday, he considered. He’d been lucky it wasn't much worse. Eventually he felt ok to try again, carefully, and so he stood up slowly and crossed the room. When he opened his bedroom door, he smelt coffee. He put on his dressing gown and went downstairs barefoot, hoping there would be some left.

Sherlock was also barefoot in his pyjamas and dressing gown, but looking far more elegant than John, and he was drinking coffee and standing by the window, looking out at the street. He looked so decadent somehow, thought John. It was the way he carried himself, everything about him was luxury.  
"Morning," said John.  
Sherlock didn't return the greeting but said instead, "There's coffee in the kitchen, if you want it."  
John poured himself a cup and went to sit down at the table. Just as the rim of John's cup touched his lower lip, Sherlock said quickly and decisively, "There's something we need to talk about."  
John's heart went _thump_ and he lowered the cup again without taking a single sip. He put it down steadily on the table and held it tightly in both hands. "And what's that?" he asked, feeling his heart thudding unaccountably.  
"When you were shot in Afghanistan, did you scream or were you silent?"  
John hadn't expected that. But what had he expected? From the way his heart was going, and the fear that had tightened his throat and chest, he thought it was more like he'd expected Sherlock to say it was over...but _what_ was over? The whole game, the whole shebang...John decided maybe he was concussed. His brain was everywhere this morning.  
"Erm...sorry, what?" he asked.  
"Just that. Did you scream when you were shot or did you not?"  
"I...er...I...Why are you asking?"  
Sherlock looked back out of the window and sipped his coffee slowly. It was like they were having a conversation about the weather.  
"I want to know. I don't think you would have, but I don't know and now I want to know."  
John tried to think and answer the question. It was an odd request, but no odder than most of Sherlock's odd requests. 

So he went back there in his mind. 

 

He remembered the heavy pressure of the sun, a hot weight on his shoulders and neck, an incessant itch on his left calf just below his knee from a mildly infected mosquito bite. He remembered the tinny voice squawking in his ear piece, the drop of sweat trickling down the side of his face and tickling at the front of his right ear, near where his helmet strap was. He remembered that someone had just begun to shout hoarsely in the Pashto language; they were yelling, "To the left, to the left!" frantically from the broken ruins of a house in front of him and his platoon. John looked through his gun sight and had taken a deep slow breath and as he had let it go, he had begun to scan the windows of the building through it, and then his left shoulder went wrong beside him. Something hit it with the force of a flying brick and it simply stopped being his left shoulder. Then it exploded in a ball of burning agony, and he gasped and swore in a small, small voice because he knew it was bad. Nothing with that agonising, numbing, dead, burning pain was going to be anything less than very, _very_ bad. He could not remember screaming, because he knew that you did not scream if you could help it, you did not display weakness to your enemy and you did not give away your position any more than it was humanly possible not to. So he had dropped his gun because he simply couldn't physically hold on to it any longer, and then he remembered sand against his right cheek and temple and the taste of hot dust and gun oil on his lips and then in his mouth, where he had laid his face gently down on the warm, welcoming ground and then he had closed his eyes, and then he didn't remember anything much more about that precise moment. He only remembered after. 

 

"No," he said to Sherlock, standing at the window, watching him. John loosened his hold on his cup of coffee carefully. "No, I...didn't scream," he said cautiously.  
Sherlock lifted his own coffee cup to take another sip and he said into the cup, "Thank you," in such a quiet voice that John only really guessed that that was what he'd said from the look in his eyes, which was serene and grateful.  
"Did you...just say 'thank you?' "John asked.  
"I did."  
"Why are you thanking me now?"  
"For telling me."  
John digested that. 'Knowledge is power,' he thought wildly. His head was suddenly pounding again and he felt a bit faint. Maybe it was remembering being shot. Remembering seeing his blood pooling in the dust again as they dragged him backwards, away from his own rifle which Smithy had grabbed up and was using frantically, swearing abuse at the insurgents he was firing at. The noise was as if all the harpies of Hell had been let loose around them. John remembered seeing the trail of blood he was leaving behind him as Murray dragged him back under the line of fire, back to the safety of the foxhole. How very dark red the blood had been, curling a graceful question mark shape in the dust, and how he had watched his useless hand at the end of his suddenly useless arm drag through the blood and the dust and the sand, and bump over a stone. He’d tried to reach round and press the fingers of his other hand against the open mess that had been the back of his left shoulder, to stem the flow of blood, and he'd thought, _’Now there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever me, forever England,’_ knowing that strange thoughts like that at a time like this were not a good sign. He tried to make his head clear and then he thought suddenly, desperately, _’Wrecked. It's wrecked. I'll never use that arm again.'_  
"Put pressure on it," he had ordered the hands that were pulling him, and then he had lost consciousness again. 

 

He blinked. He looked at Sherlock standing silhouetted in the sunlight at the window, and as Sherlock turned his head away suddenly to look out at the street again, John saw the top of the white dressing covering his knife wound above the open neck of his pyjama top. Unlike the head-chef's knife wound months ago, this one _had_ needed stitches. But what if Sherlock hadn't blocked the blade? What if it had gone in between the clavicle and first rib and pierced or even severed Sherlock’s subclavian artery? The only way to compress that vessel and even hope to repair it was to open up the chest…what if the stab wound had been there instead and left Sherlock dead at the scene within minutes? _What if,_ he thought, sickened, _what if, what if?_

Now he felt really faint and he actually had to shove his chair backwards and move his cup out of the way, so that he could cross his forearms on the table and put his head down onto them. 'I'm definitely concussed,' he thought. "Sherlock, I think I might go back to bed for a bit. I think I need to lie down," he said with his head down on the table.  
Sherlock had watched John grow paler and paler and though he didn't ask if John was alright, he said immediately,   "Good idea. I think I might go and lie down too." He watched John as he said it.  
John lifted his head at that. He wasn't quite with it and he wasn't sure what Sherlock meant. "With _me?”_ he asked, uncertainly.  
But Sherlock, whether deliberately or not, misunderstood his question and said coolly, "If you like."  
"Oh...erm...I didn't mean...I didn't mean..." John couldn't form the words. "I didn't mean, I _want_ you to lie down with me…"  
"What did you mean then?"  
"I just...er...I just meant I was going to go and lie down. And you said...I thought you..." John stopped and paused for a second. "Why, d'you… _want_ …to lie down...with me?"  
"Go back to bed, John," Sherlock said, turning his head again to look back out of the window and sipping his coffee.  
John couldn't drink his coffee. He got up carefully from the table, poured a glass of water, and went back to bed, where he drank half the glass of water in one go and then put it down carefully on his bedside table. Then he just as carefully got into bed again and pulled the duvet slowly up over his ear. He could only lay on his right side, as the bump on the left side made it too painful to lay that way, and it was so sore that he could feel it when he laid on his back, even when he turned his head to the right. Because of this, he was lying facing the window, his back to the door, and he only realised that Sherlock was in his doorway when Sherlock pushed the door softly all the way open. John heard the familiar soft creak of it opening and sensed Sherlock was just standing there, but John wasn't sure what to do or what to say, so he did nothing and said nothing. He just lay still and waited to see what Sherlock was going to say. But, like him, Sherlock didn't say a single word. He came over and sat softly down on the edge of John's bed, making the mattress dip under the extra weight. His back where he sat down was pressed against John's.   
"Move over," said Sherlock quietly, like this was the most normal thing in the world.  
So, without a word, John moved over to give Sherlock some room, and Sherlock stood up again and turned the duvet back and he slid silently into the bed, the sound of his silk dressing gown sliding on John's rough cotton sheet, and then he brought the duvet back up over them both again. The pain and faintness in John's head had vanished like a dream as soon as Sherlock had sat on his bed. Now all he was aware of in his own body was his heart pounding and the heat of Sherlock next to him. Sherlock was lying on his back, and his shoulder and hip fitted comfortably against the length of John's spine. John had his knees bent up in the foetal position, but he could feel the side of Sherlock's calf hot against the sole of one of his feet. He tried to breathe normally and found it difficult. Sherlock was not, as a rule, given to hugs and shows of affection, and although John was, he was so _not_ used it from Sherlock, that he didn't know what to do with this. They lay there, breathing rhythmically together under John's duvet, in John's bed, and didn't speak or move or look at each other. John closed his eyes and took a very deep breath, and he found that the warmth and the presence of Sherlock in his bed was strangely comforting. He realised he felt very…grounded, suddenly. Brought back down to Earth by the welcome weight and pressure of his friend's body beside him. It was like being anchored. He began to relax. So much so, that he only realised he'd dozed off when he opened his eyes again and found Sherlock gone and that he was alone. 

A glance at the clock showed just under an hour had passed. He felt so much better. No pounding head - no headache at all. He sat up slowly, and then he leaned over for the glass and drank the rest of the water, turning to look and noting that the only sign that Sherlock had actually really been there, and it hadn't just been a surreal dream, was the indentation in the pillow where Sherlock’s head had been, lying next to his own.

So this was another thing that they would never talk about, he thought, looking at the soft, rounded hollow in the fabric. He put the glass back on the bedside table thoughtfully and before he could tell himself not to, he shifted over and laid back down where Sherlock had lain, turning his face slightly into the pillow and breathing in Sherlock's heady, woody scent. He didn't let himself ask why he was doing it and his internal voice stayed wisely mute. He breathed in Sherlock's scent until he couldn't really smell it any more, and then he got up. The internal voice remained thankfully silent.

Sherlock was out, and there was no indication of where he had gone and when he would be back. So John made some breakfast for himself and sat at the table with it, flicking through one of the newspapers while he ate. 'All back to normal again, then,' he thought suddenly. He didn't know if he was relieved or saddened by that. 

He was right though, they didn't talk about it. Sherlock didn't mention it when he came home and neither did John. It was as if it had never happened. 

 

~~~~~

 

Four weeks after that, Sherlock took a risky roll across the bonnet of a large fast-moving car, in order to chase a fleeing business man whom a terrified witness had just alleged had been the one responsible for the murder of his wife. Sherlock leapt for the bonnet, meaning to skim over it and land sure-footed on the other side, but misjudged it slightly and rolled awkwardly over it, then landing hard and badly on the road. John was way behind him, but saw it all and sprinted faster, heart in mouth. He was relieved to see Sherlock get up from the road a moment later, cast an almost apologetic glance back at the driver - who was getting out of the car, yelling abuse at him - and then run on after the suspect. Though Sherlock had appeared to be unhurt, by the time they had delivered the man to the police ("Guilty," Sherlock had pronounced discretely as he handed him over to Lestrade), John could see he was suffering from the consequences of his actions now that the adrenaline level had dropped. He was stretching his neck from side to side and repeatedly rolling his shoulders.  
"What's hurting?" asked John.  
"Ridiculous American cars with their excessive bonnet adornments," growled Sherlock. "Caught me right between the shoulder blades."  
"I'll have a look when we get back," said John, soothingly. 

By the time they got back, Sherlock was really grumbling. "It really hurts now," he said, reaching round once again to rub the base of his neck under his coat collar. John put his key in the door and pushed the door open and stood to the side to allow Sherlock to go in first.  
Sherlock stopped in the doorway, his hand still on the base of his neck, and looked at John thoughtfully.  
"What?" asked John, not generally being able to read minds the way Sherlock could.  
"Nothing," Sherlock replied and went upstairs.  
John pulled a face to himself, wondering how many times now they had had a cryptic exchange like that one, and followed him up. 

 

‘First things first,’ thought John and he filled the kettle and switched it on, chose two cups from the cupboard and set them out. "Come on then, let's have a look," he called through to Sherlock, thinking that while the kettle boiled he'd make a preliminary assessment. He went through from the kitchen to the sitting room, where Sherlock had dumped his coat on the back of John’s armchair and was standing in the middle of the room, rolling his neck awkwardly. "Stop doing that… right; shirt off, come into the light," instructed John. Sherlock immediately started to undo his shirt and folded back the collar of it to drop it down, draping it over his left shoulder and exposing the shoulder and the base of his neck.  
"I need to see properly, can you take your shirt off?" John asked, matter of factly. "And you need to turn around so your back's to the window - I need to have good light. It’s so bloody dark in here."  
John felt like he was gabbling a bit but that was probably because Sherlock wasn't speaking at all. Sherlock complied with everything John asked, taking his shirt off and chucking it dismissively onto the back of the dining chair at the table. He stood shirtless once again with his back to the window, and so John went and stood behind him. 

This was far from the first time John had seen Sherlock half undressed, and he'd seen him in nothing more than a sheet plenty of times, both at home and even at the palace, but this was different somehow. 

This was different because the knife-wound business had been an instinctive assessment of a very visible and bleeding wound, which urgently required his attention, and as a doctor and a surgeon, John's attention had been drawn to that wound and the blood with the single-mindedness of a hungry shark. But this was not the same. There _was_ no wound. There was no blood; only Sherlock's smooth, pale back, with a reddening mark at the base of his neck and some very minor skin abrasions over the left shoulder blade and just below it, from hitting the bonnet decoration on the car and the fall onto the road. Luckily for Sherlock, the faithful Belstaff had cushioned that impact, a little. The older scar from the head-chef's knife wound had healed well; leaving a faint, pale, extended dash above and across the highest point of the left scapula - as shoulder blades went, Sherlock's left one certainly seemed to be the unlucky one.   
So, John found himself looking at Sherlock's back and his spine - instead of blood, and knife wounds - assessing its natural, graceful curve, the flat triangular wings of his shoulder blades, the smooth, toned muscles of his back and the mild protrusions of his vertebrae. This was different because when he'd seen Sherlock undressed before, it had been a coincidence then that he'd seen Sherlock's unclothed body - this was him asking permission to look and Sherlock giving it. And to look properly, not just snatch a fleeting, embarrassed glance; to look as a professional, as a concerned friend. And then John realised suddenly, as he stood there looking, that there was more - that this was different as well because he could also _smell_ Sherlock’s body. The exertion earlier of running after the business man had raised his body temperature and so now John could smell him. John breathed in deeply and inhaled the soft, familiar scent of the man he lived with; woody, somehow, musky, very…. _agreeable._ He smelt good. He smelt really good. John could feel his heart start to beat faster of its own accord. His mouth was suddenly very dry. John swallowed with difficulty and went closer. "What's your movement like?" he asked, almost thinking aloud, and then he asked Sherlock to first rotate and then flex his neck forwards, and, like before, Sherlock could demonstrate a fairly full range of neck movement. "It just feels very tight," he said. 

The elegantly defined muscles of Sherlock's shoulders and back were...distracting John somehow. He put his hand near Sherlock's uninjured right shoulder, high up on his upper arm, to steady him, and again, like before when he had touched Sherlock's face, he was aware of something changing in the atmosphere of the room. They so rarely touched each other - it was as if the room was holding its breath. Sherlock's right shoulder was very warm under his hand. 'Get a grip!' thought John, and he mentally shook himself. 'Do what you're supposed to be doing,' he thought firmly, and he pressed carefully, decisively, just above and then just below the reddening at the base of Sherlock's neck. John concentrated on making the steadying right hand do its job - be steadying and solid, while his left hand - the palpating hand - palpated and examined Sherlock's back effectively all around the reddening and the abrasions, feeling the muscles and what was going on underneath them. He checked all the ribs, asking various diagnostic questions such as, "Does this hurt?", "Does this?",  "How about here?" and Sherlock's answers were mainly in the negative.  

"I think your spine and your ribs are all fine, Sherlock,” said John, eventually.  
"Mmmm," replied Sherlock, rubbing his lower neck again briefly.  
"I think it's just a muscle and joint strain to the spinal joints of your upper back and the base of your neck, and some minor abrasions, here and here," John said. As he said the words, _"here,"_ he indicated where both abrasions were with a light touch close to each. "At least you don't need A &E for this one," he remarked, smiling now.  
Sherlock snorted and John didn't need to see his face to know that Sherlock had grinned at that with one side of his mouth. "What would I want to go to A&E for and wait for six hours to be seen by a teenager, when I've got you at home who will see me immediately and do a sterling job?" he asked rhetorically.  
John smiled too, amused now, and he dropped his hand from Sherlock's shoulder.  "Aren't you lucky to have me?" he joked.  
"I am lucky," Sherlock replied, suddenly. "I am very lucky to have you," he added, suddenly serious, his gaze still directed straight ahead.  
John didn't reply. He felt the shift in the comments from joking to not-joking. _Dangerous emotional ground,_ barked his mind, quickly. But John knew what would help Sherlock's neck.  
"Do you want me to do some soft tissue work on it?" he offered. "I know what to do."  
Sherlock looked around awkwardly at John over his left shoulder. John noted the wince as he moved. "What do you mean, _’soft tissue work’?”_ Sherlock asked.  
"Do you want me to do some work on your shoulders? They're very tight. Some soft tissue work would help with the strain and tension around the base of your neck and shoulders where you rolled over the car."  
There was a tiny pause and then Sherlock asked, “Are you offering me a massage?” still standing with his back to John, still looking around at him over his shoulder.  
John was embarrassed by the use of the word 'massage' but yes, that was what it was and that was what he was offering.  
"Yes, alright, I'm offering you a massage. Take it or leave it," he said defensively.  
Now Sherlock turned round slightly more towards John and John absolutely did not glance down at his bare chest and stomach. He kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock's face. And Sherlock was looking at him. "Were you with her long?" he asked casually.  
_"What?!"_  
"Were you with her long, the girlfriend who taught you how to do massage?" Sherlock reiterated.  
John was irrationally incensed. He gaped. "How the _hell_ did you know that?" he barked.  
"Because you are very embarrassed by it, therefore it has embarrassing connotations for you, so clearly there is a link to sex, you were with her long enough for her to teach you some techniques and for you to feel confident enough in using them to offer to use them on me, so clearly not a brief… _liaison,_ then, and so therefore it was a girlfriend who taught you how to do it and you obviously massaged each other…” He left the words, _"And then you had sex…"_ hanging in the air.  
He was so astonishingly right that John's indignant anger was almost obliterated. Almost. He offered no praise for that deduction though, and he crossed his arms without realising he'd done it.  
"Yeah, alright, no shit, Sherlock," he said, "it _was_ a girlfriend. Now, do you want this massage or not? Like I said, Take it or leave it."  
"I'll take it," said Sherlock calmly.  
"Fine," snapped John, fuming.  
Sherlock turned his back to John again and stood there. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.  
"Shut up, for one thing," snarled John, and grabbed one of the chairs angrily from the table at his side. He set it behind Sherlock but turned it sideways, so that when Sherlock sat down, the back of the chair would be positioned at his right side and therefore Sherlock's entire back would be exposed for John to reach.  
"Sit down," John said, a little less angrily. Sherlock sat down, agreeably silent.  
John took a deep breath. 'Can't treat angry,' he thought, and he let that breath go, hard. He took his jumper off and began to roll up his shirt sleeves. While he was doing it, he took in a second deep breath through his nose, blew it out through his mouth and sent his anger and embarrassment away with it. "Just sit up straight, but keep your shoulders and neck relaxed," John instructed. "Don't lean against me." Sherlock followed the instructions but didn't speak. John stood behind him, rubbed his hands briskly together for a few moments to make them warm, and then set them gently onto Sherlock's shoulders. Sherlock was silent. John started work. Almost immediately, John could feel Sherlock's muscles begin to respond under the slow, repeated rolling pressure of his thumbs, the flats of his fingers and the heels of his palms. The large trapezius muscles of Sherlock's upper shoulders gradually began to soften and Sherlock took a long, deep breath and let his shoulders drop slightly. "That is...very effective," he murmured after a moment.  
John smiled. "Good," he said. He knew it was. He knew that he was good at it.  The sports masseur girlfriend used to say that he had very 'good hands'. Apparently some people just did. So he concentrated on doing a really good job, changing the position and direction of his pressure and working on the various muscle groups between Sherlock's shoulder blades and then at the base of his neck, being careful to avoid too much superficial friction on Sherlock’s skin so it wouldn't get uncomfortable.  
"Mmm. Most doctors are not so good with the hands-on aspect," commented Sherlock as John worked a particularly tight area loose.  
"I'm not most doctors," John said, and smiled.  
"You most certainly are not," Sherlock said and John could hear in his voice that he had smiled too. There was a pause. Then Sherlock added, in a contemplative tone, "That's far more true than you realise, John."  
John, still smiling, didn’t answer, assuming he meant in regards to John's career change as a consulting detective's assistant and personal physician.

A few more minutes passed, as Sherlock's muscles gave way under John's hands, and then Sherlock breathed in deeply again through his nose and tipped his head slowly over to the right as he exhaled, to gently stretch his neck. John had been watching him carefully, in the way that someone doing a job looks at the job that they are doing, but as Sherlock tipped his head over like that, the strong band of his left sternocleidomastoid muscle at the side of his throat became very prominent, very exposed, and from where he was standing above it, John noticed afresh the fading pink scar from the Stanley knife. Without thinking, John ran the tips of his fingers lightly down the length of the muscle from behind Sherlock's left ear, to where it attached, down onto his clavicle and sternum, intending to next work on the area around the scar, but as he slid his fingers smoothly down the muscle, Sherlock gasped. 

John froze. 

Sherlock froze. 

The world simply stopped turning. John opened his mouth to say, "Did that hurt?" although that was just a cover, because he knew that Sherlock's gasp had not been a gasp of pain, but before he could speak, Sherlock brought his right hand quickly across his body and up, and his fingers touched and then rested lightly on John's where they now lay, still on his clavicle and shoulder. John watched as Sherlock's long fingers slid up John's own, up to the back of his hand. _That was a stroke,_ he thought. Sherlock had just deliberately _stroked_ John's fingers and hand, and as John watched, still frozen, still mesmerised, with both his hands on Sherlock but both unmoving now, Sherlock brought his right arm up higher and his hand carried on sliding up John's bare forearm, until he gripped John's forearm just above his wrist and _squeezed,_ sending invisible sparks flying up John's arm and a shiver up John's back and the hairs on the nape of his neck rose up and now it was John's turn to gasp. He closed his mouth quickly and swallowed, and then opened it again to speak - without a clue of what he was going to say - but before he could even make a sound, Sherlock twisted quickly round on the chair, still holding John's forearm tightly, and he looked back and up over his shoulder at John and his gaze was like molten mercury. Hot and deadly and exhilarating. 

The force of it sent a jolt of desire straight to John's stomach. Sherlock kept his hold on John's arm, but he began to rise to stand up. John loosened his own hold on Sherlock's shoulders and let go of him, dropping his hands to his sides while Sherlock turned elegantly as he rose to face John, still looking at him, smoothly shoving the chair that stood between them to one side, out of the way, with his leg and with his other hand; sliding his right hand up over John's rolled up shirt sleeve, and up to grip his upper arm. Now Sherlock stood in front of John, face to face. He had kept his hold on John's arm throughout the whole movement of getting up, and he had also held John's gaze just as firmly. He moved his right hand further up to John's shoulder, then up to the collar of his shirt and his fingers made contact with John's neck, while John stood rooted to the spot, his scalp tingling, his heart pounding, neurons firing off in all directions, and he was thinking wildly, ‘Oh my God Sherlock, really? _Really?!_ …we're doing _this?’_ It was over-whelming and terrifying. And a part of him was also vaguely aware that they were right in front of the window. But then Sherlock brought his hand up from John's neck to the side of John's face, and slid his fingers round and spread them in John's hair, the ball of his thumb cupping soft on the angle of John's jaw, and he leaned forward and down to John and John could have no doubt about his friend's intentions. _'Some things are just meant to be,’_ whispered his internal voice knowingly, and then everything shifted perspective and he found he no longer cared about the window. He had been standing with his hands dangling shocked at his sides when Sherlock had begun to move, but now John reacted. He brought his own hands up quickly - to Sherlock's left shoulder and the other to the side of his neck, and he saw and felt his friend gasp in a breath at the shock of his touch.  
Sherlock paused with his mouth just inches away from John's, and John thought, 'He's waiting for this to be my decision too,' and he flicked a glance from Sherlock's mouth up to his eyes and this time it was he who read Sherlock's mind. He saw the question there in Sherlock's eyes and he knew the answer in his heart instantly. 

“Oh God, yes," John whispered breathlessly, "Yes, I do," and then, without hesitation, he slid his hand up from Sherlock's neck into his curls and brought him down hard to his mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

He closed his eyes and suddenly everything was Sherlock. _‘I am kissing Sherlock_ \- I’m kissing _Sherlock!’_ he thought, incredulous, even while it was happening. And there was nothing gentle about it…Sherlock’s mouth on his; the heady, familiar scent of him, the feel of his hair, thick and silky in John's fingers and under his hand, the solid heavy warmth of his body pressed full against John's as John raked his fingers roughly from Sherlock's bare shoulder down his smooth back. _’Oh God,’_ thought John, helplessly, _’Oh God…’_ He felt a building surge of pure amazed joy, and of a strange liberation; the stark incredulity that this was _actually happening_ and, with that, the absurdity of realising that everyone had been right about them - and about him - all along, then. 

John was amazed to find out just how much his body knew what it wanted. And it was very certain about it indeed. There was nothing unsure about this kiss either…and Jesus, it was just so…fucking… _hot,_ John thought, thrilled. This realisation was followed by a delicious shock of horror; _What the hell were they actually_ doing _here? What_ was _this? And was this really for real?_ But they were still kissing each other, with no sign of it stopping, so yes, clearly it was.

Their kiss intensified and simultaneously he realised that what he also wanted right now was to march Sherlock backwards over to the couch, throw him down and ravish him on it. So a realisation indeed, then. And John knew he could do it, if he wanted to. He might not be as tall as Sherlock, but he was strong and he had no issue with their height difference. He was _tall enough,_ as he always used to think, and his height had never been a problem for him. Sherlock's height wasn't a problem for him now. The fact that Sherlock was a man wasn't exactly a ‘problem’ either, it was just what made this so very different, but as he had realised just moments ago; even if his brain still cared about that, his body didn't. His heart didn't. It knew and had always known what his brain had resisted. His feelings for Sherlock were nothing new to his heart. In the moment of revelation, when he finally saw that shining and golden fact, John took his mouth away from Sherlock's and he gasped, his hands stilled on Sherlock's body. "I think I know something new about myself now that I didn't know this morning," he said hesitantly, incredulously.  
Sherlock didn't ask what it was. He didn't need to. Of course, he already knew. He smiled and leaned closer, dipping his head. "I already knew," he said, and that would have been a smug comment, but for the fact that Sherlock had his mouth very close to John's left ear when he spoke, and the words as he said them were breathed into it rather than spoken out loud, in such an intimate way that it left John reeling. 

Then Sherlock's tongue touched John's ear in a small seductive lick and John could have kicked himself for it, but a moan escaped him.  
Sherlock stopped. “Oh. You like that," he said, softly. It was not really a question.  
“Oh yeah, I like that,” said John, and his voice was rough and husky.  
“Well, that's good,” Sherlock replied, his own voice a dark rumble, “because I rather find that I liked doing it to you…” and as he spoke, he went to work on John's ear and neck. 

John felt a shiver go down his back at Sherlock's voice and Sherlock's mouth and tongue and teeth, hot and wet and hard on his neck. _“Oh God,”_ he gasped. He clutched at Sherlock and wove his fingers into his hair and held him there and there was a short spell of time when John could barely even _think,_ but then he came back to himself again. He brought his hands up quickly, to pull Sherlock away from his neck, enjoying a moment of seeing Sherlock's shocked surprise before John took his friend's face gently between both his palms, and watched the expression dissolve as he leaned in and kissed Sherlock softly and lightly. Sherlock closed his eyes, in pleasure, like a stroked cat, and John closed his own eyes and kissed him again, slowing it right down; first feeling Sherlock's full lips with his own, and then tracing across them with the tip of his tongue, and then pressing his teeth into them lightly. At Sherlock’s soft rumble of appreciation, their kiss immediately intensified again, and John decided instantly it was time for a chair, or the sofa or the wall or anywhere; in fact, _anywhere_ where he could press his body hard against his friend’s and do to Sherlock what Sherlock had just done to him. He pulled his mouth away from Sherlock's and told him so.  _“Sherlock! Jesus!_ I want…I wanna do that to you, the neck thing,” he said, breathlessly.  
“Oh, so things have definitely changed then," said Sherlock, with an ironic grin forming on his lips, his face beautifully flushed.  
John snorted in amusement. “Oh yeah, I think we can safely say that things have _definitely_ changed," he confirmed calmly, and as he was never one to shy away from decisive action, he decided and took charge of the newly-changed things by walking Sherlock backwards to the waiting sofa. Sherlock went willingly, a seductive smirk on his face, knowing exactly what John was thinking, and as his calves touched the sofa, he sat down and then slid sideways down onto it, bringing John down with him by clutching at his shoulder and his back, and so they fell onto it together in a clumsy heap. John gave another soft half-laugh at the awkwardness of managing it - in much the same way that he had laughed only the day before at the awkwardness of crouching together uncomfortably, hidden behind a skip, waiting for a suspect to leave a house they were watching. They had been close together then, squashed into a tiny space in the darkness, their bodies pressed together but with a completely different focus on their minds then as to what was on their minds now. Or maybe not, as it turned out…

Sherlock shifted slightly underneath John and this time, John suddenly found himself actually lying on his best friend, pinning him down with his body, pressing his weight against him in a way that he had never experienced before in all their escapades. Not to mention the addition of passionate snogging into the scenario, which was also new…and the whole thing was simply fucking _marvellous._  
‘This is… _oh fuck!’_ thought John, almost delirious with joy but no longer laughing, looking down at Sherlock in something like wonder. ‘This is _Sherlock_ I'm doing this with!’ The thought kept repeating itself, like he still couldn't quite believe this was happening, and as the the idea passed through his brain again, Sherlock lifted his head from the sofa, tilting his face to kiss John softly. When he laid his head back down, Sherlock said nothing and his face was unreadable, but his eyes were sultry and serious.  
“I—we’re really doing this?” asked John, and Sherlock smiled.  
“It would appear so,” he replied. “Why, do you have another pressing engagement elsewhere?"  
John snorted again and nearly laughed outright. “Oh, I think I have something I want to press into you," he said, filthily. He was good at that sort of talk.  
And, well, but that certainly had the desired effect: John watched as Sherlock's eyes widened a little briefly in surprise before he closed them abruptly and swallowed, suddenly speechless at the thought of it.

‘How can this be so easy?’ thought John in wonder, this switch from herero-sexual-straight to the complete opposite? But then, as he stroked his hand up the hot, smooth skin of Sherlock's side and ribcage, up and across his chest to his neck, he thought, ‘but it wasn't a sudden switch, was it?’ He had had so long to think about it, so long to deny it and refuse to acknowledge it; it had been a slow, slow sea-change of thought where his doubts had lapped away at what he believed to be true, like the tide on the shore, and gradually and irresistibly, under the surface, had changed his entire belief system about himself. Only now, today, had the water withdrawn for it to surface. There was conscious thought and there was decision making, and then there was this - Sherlock had simply turned to him with such a look in his eyes and John had not thought, 'Oh _no_ , oh God, _no,’_ in embarrassed horror, he had thought, 'Oh fuck, _yes.' Yes._ And that ‘yes’ had been hot and instant and absolutely whole-hearted. _‘Oh fuck,_ yes. _He wants me…And by God, if I don’t want him too…’_ And so here they were. And John was sure - he had never been more sure about anything in his life - that this was _right._ Absolutely the right thing to happen. All these thoughts and revelations went through his head with the speed and power of a forest fire, until Sherlock, bored with John's slow thoughtful stroking and having to watch him process - for if John's thoughts were a forest fire, Sherlock's were an incendiary bomb - Sherlock slid his hand quickly up John's back and into his hair and pulled John down to meet his mouth. He had waited so long for this he couldn't wait any longer. 

They kissed each other like lovers reunited, until suddenly John realised that here he could return the favour to Sherlock's neck, and he went for it with all he had, sliding his arm under Sherlock's head to grip his fingers in Sherlock's curls, his other hand pinning Sherlock's shoulder to the sofa, his lower body pressed hot and hard and fervent against Sherlock's, while Sherlock groaned low and deep in his throat and wrapped one leg around John's, all the better to hold him there. It was as if whatever one of them did, the other had a response for it, which in turn would drive them both equally forward. Just as John began to realise he really wanted some skin-on-skin contact - and what a fucking delight _that_ would be - Sherlock clutched a fistful of the back of John’s shirt and pulled it, hard. _“Shirt off!”_ he snapped impatiently, letting go, and John obeyed immediately, releasing Sherlock and rising up with difficulty to kneel awkwardly between Sherlock's endless legs and unbutton his shirt as quickly as he could. As he did so, he stared down at the sultry and seductive mess that Sherlock had become. 

His thick and darkly tousled curls, his luminous eyes, his pale smoothly muscled body and lean stomach with the light drift of hair which led John's eye down to the waistband of his expensive trousers, now quite badly creased, and - more importantly - underneath them, his obvious and very full erection. ‘I'll deal with _you_ later,’ thought John, shocked that he could even _think_ that about another man's cock, let alone Sherlock's. Sherlock simply lay there, motionless, watching John devour him visually. And John was suddenly brought to mind of a leopard on a branch, which may or may not know it is beautiful, but all the same, doesn't really care either way as all its attention is focused on its prey. Oh, he can be so graceful, thought John, admiring him, but right now his friend had not so much grace, but a stark demanding beauty, and John burned to look at him, like a moth to the flame. 

He unfastened his last button and pulled his shirt off to throw it carelessly to the floor, but before he could lie back down on Sherlock and feel him full length, skin to skin like this, Sherlock put his hand up onto John's stomach to stop him. John waited, completely still, suddenly terrified to hear what he would say. ‘Oh, no, please, not now,’ John thought, ‘not when I have forsaken everything I ever thought I was for this.’ Sherlock held John's gaze calmly but with a carefully restrained anxiety of his own. “There is no going back from here, John,” he said, his hand unmoving on John's firm stomach. "You understand...this changes _everything_ … I need to know that you are...completely sure.”

In spite of Sherlock’s seriousness, John almost laughed. He knew Sherlock could read him like a book but it seemed he still just wanted to hear John say it aloud. He looked Sherlock in the eye and smiled. He wasn't afraid. “I am so sure, Sherlock,” he said, “And I am going to wake up tomorrow and still be sure.” Sherlock started to smile his slow smile and then inspiration hit John and he added, “A long time ago you said, ‘Could be dangerous,’ and here I am…I’m still here…And I’m staying.” He was pleased with this and he let it show in his voice and on his face. He knew Sherlock would like it, but he hadn't realised how much. 

For Sherlock, those words embodied everything that had attracted him to John in the first place. ‘Could be dangerous’ he'd said, not so much a warning but an invitation, or a test. John hadn’t even asked what the danger might be, he had just come; instantly. To be at Sherlock's side. To face the danger, whatever form it might take. That had said worlds about John Watson, then. As it did this time, when John said those same words back to Sherlock, knelt poised above him, half naked, ready to change his whole life in an instant with Sherlock once again. 

Sherlock rose up, fast, lifting his upper body from the sofa and with both hands he grasped John's side and his shoulder and brought him down, like the predator that John had visualised earlier. But John was no easy, witless prey. He went down willingly, with a fierce response of his own. They fell on each other again and kissed like the world was ending.

When they stopped to breathe, John, who never talked about feelings, wanted to tell Sherlock how strongly he felt. “Sherlock, this is…I’ve—I don't think I've ever felt this… _alive_ …" said John, honestly, breathing hard, staring into Sherlock's eyes.  
“Stop talking,” growled Sherlock, “and kiss me.”

So John did. 

Again, and again, and again. 

The little antique sofa at 221b had never seen so much action in its life. Because Sherlock lay beneath with John above him, John was free to move...and so he made the most of this advantage, and he _moved._ On the narrow confines of the sofa, John did as he was bid. He kissed Sherlock; on his mouth, on his neck, on his chest and eventually, John slid down on to the floor on one knee to be able to reach his stomach. He kissed Sherlock, licked him, bit him, everywhere he he reach, he caressed it with his mouth. And Sherlock, the most emotionally contained person that John had ever met - except perhaps for himself - let himself be lost to John. He let John take him over, because it was so clearly what John needed to do at that moment, and who was Sherlock to stop him? 'Plenty of time to reverse the roles later,' he thought, once, briefly, when thinking was still a viable option. And then thinking went somewhere else and he could only feel John’s lips and mouth and hands on his body, and respond to him without thought. Suddenly, John stopped what he was doing, which at that moment involved tracing hot promises on Sherlock's neck with his tongue and teeth, and he drew back to look into Sherlock's eyes. The moment he did so he knew what he wanted next. “I want more than this,” he said simply, hungrily.

Sherlock took this in. He wasn’t sure that John was ready to do it himself yet, so he did it for him. He kept his eyes on John's and reached down slowly and deliberately. John moved away slightly to let him do it, as Sherlock unbuttoned his own trousers and then undid his flies. The sound of his zip was loud in the near silence of their breathing.  
Sherlock said nothing at all but the look in his eyes said everything. He took John's hand from where it gripped his thigh and brought it gently to the front of his pants. John pressed his hand down slowly, watching Sherlock's face, and it took every ounce of Sherlock's self-control not to push back up hard in response. The silent moment that passed between them then was charged and heavy with significance. “Now what?” Sherlock said quietly, breaking the silence, his voice rough-edged.  
“Now we go to bed," replied John immediately, and Sherlock heard the decision and the order in John's voice and he liked it. He smiled a slow, soft smile and if John hadn't realised already that he loved Sherlock, was _in love_ with him, then he would have realised it at that moment with the strong steady pulse of his heart and the sweet swelling ache in his chest.  
John smiled too in reply, and got awkwardly up off the sofa from between Sherlock's long legs to stand beside it; hard and desperate in his jeans, feeling as clumsy and awkward as a teenager as he held out his hand to Sherlock. Sherlock took John's hand firmly in his own and stood up. One-handed, he discretely did his trousers up and he looked at John when he had done it.  
“Let’s go to my room,” said John, beginning to turn, to lead the way. He immediately felt some resistance from Sherlock, so he looked back to see Sherlock standing still with a slight frown on his face. “Erm…I have the bigger bed…” he said.  
John hesitated to say exactly what had been on his mind. “But mine’s further away from Mrs. H…if we get…ah…if it gets noisy…” replied John. _Noisy—if we get noisy,_ he thought. The thought of him and Sherlock being noisy in bed together made his insides clench and his cock jump with lust. Maybe Sherlock felt the same way, as he suddenly reached down and had to adjust himself through his trousers. John could see his erection pressing against the fabric. _‘This is real,’_ thought John, _‘this is fucking_ real.’ He still could hardly believe it. The red marks he had made on Sherlock’s chest and neck glowed softly against his pale skin. They would be the evidence then, for this case. He must have smiled a little at that because Sherlock, who was watching him closely, asked, “What?”  
John squeezed his hand. It fitted firm against his own like their two hands were made to fit together. 'You and me against the world,' thought John, and now he really smiled, because Sherlock, who was still watching him, smiled back and asked, “Now what?”  
“Nothing,” said John, “just thinking about what I want to do to you.”  
Sherlock squeezed his hand in return. “Then lead the way, John,” he said, with a quite different kind of smirk rising to his face. “I’m all yours.”  
_'Ahh, fuck!'_ thought John, delighted, and he grinned back. He should have realised by now that sex with Sherlock was always going to be so much more than simply a physical act. He didn't think he’d ever had this intimate mental connection before, because - of course - how could he have done? There was only one Sherlock Holmes. And apparently, he was all John’s. 

With that, John turned fully and now led the way to his bedroom, taking the usual familiar path to bed, but this time, feeling Sherlock’s large, warm hand clasped tightly in his own, the sound of his friend’s familiar tread crossing the room and going up the stairs but this time, directly behind him.  
He was actually taking Sherlock _upstairs_ with him.  
‘What happens now?’ John thought, excited, aroused and totally terrified.  
_Wait and see,_ answered his inner voice, sounding as though it could hardly wait. 

In his bedroom, John turned to face his friend. The look on John’s face read, _Are_ you _ready for this? Are_ you _sure?_ and Sherlock’s clear and unwavering look answered him. _I am. Are you?_ John’s reply to that was to abruptly close the gap between them, letting go of Sherlock’s hand to sweep his own hand up the side of Sherlock’s face and cup the back of his head. At the same time, he came up quickly onto the balls of his feet, in a perfectly orchestrated movement to reach Sherlock’s mouth with his own. His other hand slid through Sherlock’s hair and down his neck as they kissed again passionately. The feel of Sherlock’s bare skin against his own was still unbelievably sensual. It was all so different to everything that John was used to, but John found himself revelling in the difference. _I’ve been denying it to myself, but I’ve wanted this so badly, for so long._ Once again, he realised that his body had known for a long time something that his conscious mind had refused to see. His kisses grew more ardent, and he pressed his body hard against Sherlock as Sherlock pressed back, his breathing as urgent and laboured as John’s. Even the sound of Sherlock breathing like that was arousing to John and John couldn't help himself. There were things he wanted to say. He may have had trouble saying deep, intense emotional stuff, but he had no trouble talking dirty. “Oh, the things I’m going to do to you,” he whispered roughly between hot, fierce kisses. And Sherlock made a rumbling moan deep in his throat as answer. He swept his hands down John’s back and round the waistband of his jeans to John’s flies and began to undo them slightly roughly. “Get these off,” he said, the roughness of his touch matching the tone of his voice. John, surprisingly, found he liked this directness - _loved_ it, in fact, and in turn, he found his own hands suddenly at the fly of Sherlock’s expensive trousers and this time he opened them himself - but much more carefully than Sherlock was doing his own. He popped the fly button and then drew down the zip, while Sherlock hurriedly flicked open each stud on the fly of John’s Levi’s. They looked up at each other, when they were done, hot and flustered and breathing hard. _We do this together or not at all,_ thought John wildly, and in unison they grinned at each other through the lust and each slid a hand into the top of the other’s underwear. 

John nearly fell over as he clasped his hand around Sherlock’s length just as Sherlock’s warm hand slipped down and gripped his own. Sherlock’s head tipped back instantly and he gasped. _“John,”_ he whispered, weakly, not moving. John saw he was struggling to hold back.  
John too, was thinking desperately of not coming - _not yet._ He looked at Sherlock and thought, 'He’s probably doing quadratic equations in his mind,' and he started to count backwards from a hundred. Suddenly John realised he could feel Sherlock’s pulse through his cock and then he concentrated on counting that for a moment, rather than allowing himself to think too much about where his hand was; not to mention the fact that Sherlock’s hot hand was curled tight around his own ragingly hard cock. He thought he could feel the pulse in that, too. He also thought he was either going to faint, fall over or come, and right now, he wanted none of those things to happen. He leaned hard against Sherlock and pushed him slightly towards the wall behind him for support. 'Some talking would be good here,' John thought, 'just to cool things down a bit,' because he was close, and he needed to get control of his cock before it exploded. Sherlock, obligingly, took the hint and let John take him the two paces backwards towards the wall. As his bare back hit the plaster, he gasped suddenly with shock. _“Cold!”_ he said, in pure reaction.  
John looked at him, pressed up starkly stunning against the white wall, and saw the opportunity for a quick one-liner while Sherlock’s defences were down. “Oh, you’re anything but _that!”_ growled John through a wolf-like grin, insinuating himself between Sherlock’s long legs, yanking down his own underwear and jeans as one as he pinned Sherlock against the wall with his lower body.  
He used his weight to press their bodies together, finding his face near Sherlock’s long, elegant neck. He licked the tip of his tongue up it slowly, fixing his mouth on the prominent muscle there to run his tongue over it and then bite it briefly, before he slowly came up - almost on his tip-toes - licking and biting his way up quickly to reach Sherlock’s ear. When he got there, he breathed Sherlock’s name into it and Sherlock’s head jerked back in reaction and hit the wall. “John! Oh, _Johhnn,”_ gasped Sherlock instantly, and he squeezed John’s cock hard, drawing his other hand sudden and hard up John’s back, his long fingers firm, the nails lightly scoring reddened lines of desire into John’s flesh.  
'So much for talking to cool things down! Holy fucking… _oh my GOD_ ,' thought John, one-handed shoving Sherlock’s pants and trousers down lower over his lean hips before slamming his body into Sherlock, pressing him tight against the wall, his hand suddenly working on Sherlock as much as Sherlock was working on him. It was almost as if they were masturbating together but had lost track of whose hand was on whose cock. And John had been absolutely startlingly spot on about the noise. Who would have thought Sherlock Holmes would be such a vocal lover? John had known that _he_ was, but _Sherlock?_ …To hear Sherlock moaning and gasping John’s name as John worked on his neck with everything he had to offer, moved his hand and and fist and fingers on Sherlock’s cock, delved deeper into Sherlock’s expensive underwear and then with both hands, pulled them down further over his lean hips to cup and squeeze and then stroke his bollocks lightly, as John liked to be stroked. Sherlock’s hot gasped reply as John murmured his name into his ear - and oh, _God,_ but to even say Sherlock’s name like _that_ \- it was incendiary to John’s desire…the way Sherlock kissed, his mouth, his voice, his long body straining under John, one strong hand and long fingers on John’s cock, the other sliding up John’s back and the nape of his neck and on up into and through John’s hair, and the smell of him; familiar but fiery and amplified by sweat and sex. 

_'Oh my God,'_ thought John again, as Sherlock’s hand speeded up, held tighter and then went slower, before he loosened his grip and twisted his wrist… John gasped. _“Fucking hell,_ Sherlock, oh my _God—fucking hell_ …” moaned John, damp with sweat, with Sherlock’s saliva on his neck, with the clear slick from Sherlock’s cock smeared silky wet across his fingers and his palm. _I’m covered in him,_ thought John, delirious with lust and happiness. John was so close and he could see Sherlock must be too. Sherlock had his eyes closed, his full lips parted, his sensuous mouth slightly open. He had never looked more strikingly beautiful to John as he did at that moment. He looked like an angel caught in the midst of having sex. _“Close?”_ John whispered urgently. It was both a question and a warning. As John uttered the word, Sherlock opened his eyes and caught John’s gaze. “Mmmmm, _oh yes, so close,”_ he almost moaned in fervent agreement.  
Together, then, thought John, they would find out what they looked like together.

John was determined that he would see Sherlock first. He couldn't miss that first time for the world. He bit down hard on his lower lip and moved his left hand firmer and faster on Sherlock. Suddenly Sherlock's face changed, his eyes dropped shut again and he gasped John's name. His hand stilled on John's cock and his head tipped bonelessly back, his lips parting slightly. His neck arched beautifully and his head rolled gently against the wall in a slow, sensuous arc. _“Oh yes, John, yes…nnnjohhhnn,”_ he murmured, and spilled himself in three hot waves between their thrusting fervent stomachs. John was overwhelmed - with everything, with the sight, the feel, the heat of Sherlock coming in his hand, at his touch. He couldn't hold back any longer - didn't want to - and as Sherlock finished, a rumbling moan deep in his throat, John's hand slowed on Sherlock’s cock just as Sherlock's tightened again on his own. “Oh _fuck, Sherlock, oh fuck,_ yeah….” he growled harshly, pinning Sherlock hard against the wall again, his own eyes closed now, his rugged handsome face contorted with the strength of his orgasm, covering both their stomachs with more waves of fluid heat. Sherlock's hand swept up John's back again as he came and kept coming, making him shudder and moan against his friend. “Oh my God, _ohmyGod, Sherlock!,”_ John cried out as he finished. As the shock waves slowly began to spiral down, John opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock and found Sherlock was watching him with a look of intense focus on his face. ‘He was doing what I did,’ thought John, ‘watching me at the moment of release.’ Sherlock let go of John's cock slightly but kept his hand where it was. John smiled, a little embarrassed at his enthusiastic and very vocal release. He loosened his own hold on Sherlock. “Er…well…” he began, and Sherlock smiled.   
“Well…” he said in reply. Then they grinned at each other.  
“Neck feeling better, then?” asked John, a wicked glint in his eye.  
And Sherlock laughed, really laughed, that deep throaty chuckle that John adored. “It certainly is…” he said, then added, “…and John, that was by _far_ the best massage I've ever had…”  
John; half undressed, with his jeans and pants shoved down loose on his thighs, and pressed up tight against Sherlock, both of them hot, sweating, and post-orgasmically high, almost shouted with laughter.  
When he could speak, he managed to ask, “How many _have_ you had?”  
Sherlock paused for a moment, then he replied seriously - as if he had just been counting - “Mmmm, well, that would be the first…” 

If the sex hadn't been noisy enough, then the bout of laughter that followed _that_ remark certainly was.  
“Oh, you—you idiot! Sherlock, you nutcase!” John yelped affectionately through the laughter when he could finally speak. “You utter—you total, utter maniac!”   
Sherlock leaned down and kissed him on his laughing mouth - simply because now he could do that. He could do all those things that he’d been thinking about for so long. “I’ve thought about us doing that so many times, John," he said softly, smiling broadly, enjoying John's amusement. It was simply the truth.  
John stopped laughing eventually and looked at him with the laughter still lighting up his face. “Christ! I can't truthfully say that _I_  have, but it was so fucking incredible…I think maybe I  _should_  have! Maybe that means I've been missing out  _not_  thinking about it!” he paused and then he repeated seriously, “That felt so _right_ between us, Sherlock. Everything did...all of it…” He brought his clean hand up to Sherlock's face and stroked his thumb across Sherlock's cheekbone to his ear. He came up again on his toes a little to kiss Sherlock and as he did so, he felt the warm squelch between them on their stomachs. He made a little noise of distaste. “Aah…shower?” he asked, knowing from Sherlock's momentary grimace just then how he felt about it too. John kissed him again briefly on the fading grimace and felt Sherlock's mouth curl into a smile under his kiss.   
“Honestly, John, I thought you’d never ask….” Sherlock quipped, making John burst out laughing again. 

 

John had tissues in his bedroom so the first part of the clean up was easy. He was glad to see Sherlock hadn't got anything on his expensive trousers. ‘Try explaining _that_ one to the dry cleaners…’ thought John with a snort of amusement. There was a moment of awkwardness when John realised it would make sense to just strip off completely and walk downstairs to the shower naked - he often just slung his dressing gown on to go down to have a shower in the mornings, but to do that now seemed coy somehow after what they'd just done. He took his jeans off and while he was just in his pants dithering about grabbing his dressing gown, he realised Sherlock had simply taken his trousers off and hung them over his arm, and was standing in his pants, waiting for John. John turned to look at him. Sherlock smiled. He wasn't at all shy. ‘Well - you’re the one who walks round in a sheet,’ thought John; of course Sherlock wasn't shy about walking around the flat practically nude. John folded his jeans loosely and laid them on his bed. He turned to face Sherlock.  
“Coming then?” Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow and curling the corner of his mouth.  
“Don't try and tell me you missed that bit!” John shot back quickly, and was rewarded with Sherlock bursting into laughter. _Again!_ It was so infectious watching him that John couldn’t help but join him. _What the_  fuck  _has happened today?!_ he thought. There was something fiery and hot burning in his belly and he realised with amazement that it was a combination of lust, love and an exuberant, total joy. It was happiness. Pure and simple. He watched Sherlock laughing and wanted to go over there and do it all over again. God, the man was _gorgeous._ Had he really not noticed it or just told himself not to, he wondered.  
"Come on, John, this stickiness is just not pleasant," said Sherlock, and John followed him downstairs to the bathroom. 

 

Having a shower with Sherlock was everything John had never imagined it could be. He took up so much space standing in the bath under the shower head. He was so tall up close in the confined space. He looked amazingly hot; naked and soaking wet. And not least, but least surprising of all these unimagined things, he was a _man._ And he was the first man that John had shared a shower cubicle with that was really only meant for one person. But for all of these reasons combined, it was the most memorable shower that John had ever had. At least, _so far_ … John just wanted to press him up against the shower tiles and lick him into submission. So he did. 

The shower took quite a long time, they were both very noisy again, and by the time they were finished, they had used up all the hot water. John had not experienced so much sexual gratification in one afternoon since he was about 22. It was truly exhilarating. This was the best kind of sex; hot, exciting and intense - with laughter and honesty, and with someone you really cared about and who cared about you. With someone you loved. It was the emotional connection that made it _fantastic sex_ rather than just _good sex._ And yes, it was with a man, but all John could think was, ‘Well, if it can be this good, then maybe it’s about bloody time I found that out.’

 

~~~~~

 

Later, John laid on his side in his bed and leant up on one elbow. He was looking at Sherlock lying next to him. Sherlock Holmes naked in John’s bed was as startling and out of place as a cat on a beach at midnight and John really couldn't look anywhere else. “So…what…what are we, now?” John asked, leaning over to stroke Sherlock's hair away from his eyes. Sherlock paused before he answered. A certain sign that he was going to tell the truth and that he wanted to consider his answer carefully before he gave it. “I don't know,”  he replied, after a moment. “I've never been here before, so I've no idea what we are, but I know that I want it.”   
John's heart and breath stopped in his throat. “Do you?” he said.  
Sherlock's eyes were the most serious and luminous John had ever seen them. “With every sense I possess, I want this, John. With you.”   
John couldn't speak anymore then so he kissed instead. They just kissed for a long time and it was full of truths and promises. 

When they broke for breath, Sherlock stroked his long fingers slowly and repeatedly through John’s hair at his temple and around his ear in an uncharacteristically affectionate way that left John all at once surprised, touched and amused. On the last stroke, Sherlock ran his fingers on down John’s neck to drop his hand to the bed. Then he put on one of his most serious voices again and said, “This is leading me onto something that needs your attention, John, another problem that you might be able to help me with…” He cracked and started smiling before he even finished the sentence.  
John could see this was leading somewhere so he played along. "Oh yeah? What?" he said, beginning to grin himself.  
“I don’t think this one’s just a flesh wound. This time it is my heart after all,” said Sherlock, and though his tone was deadly serious, his smile widened.  
“Really?” asked John, in the same serious tone, knowing what Sherlock was saying here with this and feeling his own heart almost skip a beat in response. He would have been unable to stop his grin of happiness spreading, even if he had cared to try. So he didn’t. He just smiled. “Well, I don’t think that’s a problem at all,” he said, “I definitely think I can help you there...but there is only one treatment for that, I’m afraid…”  
“And what might that treatment be?” asked Sherlock, reaching out to run his index finger across John’s lower lip lightly as he spoke.  
“Well, you’re in luck. I have it right here...It’s me,” said John, still grinning, feeling his own heart swell within him.  
Sherlock leaned forward and kissed him slowly where his finger had traced. “Ah, you’re right,” he said afterwards, grinning back, “I appear to be feeling better already.”


End file.
